epickz —

Sling TV takes a swing at HBO with Epix video-on-demand

Dish is trying to build a cord-cutter's Swiss Army knife of entertainment.

Today Dish announced that its live TV streaming service will soon include access to four new channels—Epix, Epix2, Epix3, and Epix Drive-In—as well as 2,000 movies and TV shows from the Epix network's subscription video-on-demand service. Sling TV launched earlier this year in an attempt to capture the growing market of cord cutters—people who've stopped paying for cable or never paid for cable in the first place because they consider it too costly and don't want to pay for lots of channels they don't watch.

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Sling TV said the Epix channels and Epix movies on demand will be available as a separate package for customers to buy in addition to the base package, which starts at $20. A spokesperson for the service would not say how much more the Epix package would cost but noted that Sling TV would announce pricing soon. Sling TV currently sells a kids package, a news package, and a sports package that customers can buy in addition to the base package. Each of those additional packages costs $5 extra per month for a handful of demographic- and content-specific channels.

“Epix offers new releases like The Hunger Games: Catching Fire, Wolf of Wall Street and Star Trek: Into Darkness, as well as classics like Pretty in Pink and Airplane!” the Sling TV press release stated. The Epix network was founded in 2009 and is co-owned by Viacom subsidiary Paramount Pictures, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM), and Lionsgate.

Epix is one of the smaller and newer video-on-demand networks with just under 10 million subscribers. As such, the network has been aggressive about offering its content through digital streaming services. A recent Los Angeles Times article also noted that the network has been hiring HBO ex-pats and plans to develop an original series this year in addition to the Road to the NHL Stadium Series documentaries that began airing this month.